Monday, March 2, 2020

I was poking about in a fly shop the other day when I
overheard an interesting and thought-provoking conversation. An angler had
arrived for the weekend and was going to hit the local spring creeks for trout.
He mentioned that he was going to fly-fish that Friday afternoon and evening,
but that for the rest of the weekend, he was going to fish Tenkara style,
because as he put it, it was “So much more fun and simpler than traditional fly
fishing.”

For those that are not familiar with Tenkara, it is a
Japanese style of fishing using a fixed line and a telescoping rod averaging
around 10-14 feet in length without a reel of any kind. First developed for
Japan’s mountainous and high-gradient streams, it jumped the Pacific and has
been adopted in America with an often-evangelical fervor.

My line of questioning (to myself) was why would Tenkara
seem so much more essential than fly-fishing? After all, fly-fishing has always
prided itself on its inherent simplicity and connection to nature and water.
Just a rod, reel, line, leader and a fly… Was it really simply the reel that
set the two-styles apart… or was there more to it? An angler with a fly-rod can
do anything a Tenkara angler can do, but isn’t limited to casting range by the
fixed line. The two systems have more in common than not, just being two
similar means to deliver a hook tied with fur and feather to a fool a fish. So
why the preference?

The angler answered the question himself shortly as he
purchased a bunch of depleted uranium ‘jig fly’ nymphs, and a package of
plastic bobbers for his afternoon and evening of ‘Traditional fly-fishing’.

Well, there it was. The answer was right in front of me.

By rigging that heavy fly and a bulky ‘bobber’ strike-indicator
on his leader, he had inadvertently destroyed the rhythm and grace of casting a
fly rod. Instead of the beautiful loops of line arcing out over the water like
a ballet to delicately present a fly, he had turned his fly- fishing outfit
into a ‘flop and lob’ rig; effective to be sure, but not graceful. Was that
simplicity and grace, that Zen essence of purity missing from his fly-fishing
driving his enjoyment and preference of Tenkara? I think it might.

For many hundreds of years, fly-fishing was concerned with
casting an un-weighted or lightly weighted fly on the end of a delicate leader.
Weight consisted of a few wraps of copper wire or later lead wire on a nymph.
That was all the angler needed to get down to the level of the trout. The late
Lee Wulff may have put it best when he quipped, “Trout deserve the sanctuary of
deep water.”

Time and innovation marches on, and the desire to make the
fly-rod do what bait-casters and spinning rods would allow led to changes
which would revolutionize the sport. No longer would high-gradient
bottom-dwelling trout be safe from the fly-angler. Enter heavily weighted
nymphs and the increasingly large, wind-resistant ‘bobbers’ necessary to
suspend them at depth. This changed casting as well. High-stick nymphing and the
‘flop and lob’ cast were seen more and more on the streams of the world. Many
anglers today know no other way to cast or deliver a fly. They are wedded to
the heavily weighted bead-head nymph and the bobber.

So why is this bad? Well, no other form defines fly-fishing
more than the art of casting. It is simple, and beautiful to watch and perform.
By placing that much weight on the end of the line, and using ‘bobber’ style
indicators, the entire dynamic is thrown off. The problem occurs with an
interruption of the smooth flow of the unfurling fly-line by hinges and
shock-points caused by the clutter attached to the leader. We are making our
fly-rod do things that it never was intended to do: thus the lack of grace and
the chucking, chunking and lobbing. We cluttered it up. We tried to turn a
ballet into a break-dance and ended up with a tangled tango. Then a new thing
comes along offering exactly what we had before we adulterated the dance, and
we waltz with the Tenkara rod…. back to that ‘Zen’ essence that we miss through
our own clutter. How ironic…

Now I don’t have anything against Tenkara. I think it is a
fun and simple way to fish. However, I think it may be time to re-examine and
de-clutter our fly-fishing if Tenkara is now offering us something which we
already had before we goofed it up.

Which leads us to the new fad sweeping the world, the
Japanese-inspired ‘Minimalist’ movement of de-cluttering and its popular guru
Marie Kondo.

‘Minimalism’ is the concept of removing all the things
distracting and non-essential in our lives and possessions to effectively
create a modern version of the simplicity of a Japanese room. (Think tatami
mat, futon, and a simple table.) Taken to extremes, as everything is these
days, it often sees the eager acolyte throwing away all their books and
mementos, and leaves them in an empty room seated on an austere wooden
Scandinavian design chair in their underwear staring at a blank wall… but I
digress. Camus would be proud.

Minimalizing or de-cluttering our fly-fishing might mean
questioning things: “Do I really need everything I carry with me?” “Is all this
junk attached to my leader really necessary?” “Do I actually use the dozens of
gadgets stuffed into every nook and cranny in my pack or vest?” or even “Is
this actually fly-fishing?”

Or is it all about the numbers of fish caught…?

Of course, I am not recommending that fly-anglers go down to
the river and make their own fly-rod from a willow branch and weave their line
from horse-hair, that might be way too Marie Kondo. However, the more
junk-in-the-trunk we eliminate and the more clutter we remove from our line and
leader, the more we might get back to the simplicity and grace, the beauty and
finesse that led us to take up fly-fishing in the first place. It doesn’t mean
we need to give up nymphing… ( I already hear the grumbling). Instead it might
just mean toning it down a bit… replacing that bobber with a piece of yarn,
using lightly weighted flies, and learning or re-learning to cast.

That might be a very good thing in the long run… especially
if it cuts down on those impromptu emergency room trips where your buddy hits
himself in the back of the head with his three-fly depleted uranium jig-fly
setup and the bobber hangs down off his ear… Sure cuts into the fishing time.

The Classical Angler

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A quiet rest stop for we anglers who enjoy tradition and literary effort, and a site that intends to inspire, question, and spur thinking.

There is power in words, and art in the angling which we need to appreciate. as we journey through the riffles of life, never forget the art and the approach are as important as the fish brought to hand.If you like this blog, please tell others about it and link to it.

Comment from the archives: This is the greatest writing on fly-fishing I have ever read since the stories of Traver and MacQuarrie. Your use of analogies and the romance and reference to art are one of a kind. Keep writing and keep this art alive please!